Roomies

Senior year is over, and Elizabeth is more than ready to leave her New Jersey town behind for Berkeley. When she receives an email from Berkeley Housing with her roommate assignment, she immediately reaches out to introduce herself to Lauren. Lauren is just as eager to escape—in her case, from the stress and chaos of her large family. But Elizabeth’s enthusiastic message lands poorly because Lauren had been hoping for a single room where she could finally have some peace and quiet. 

The two girls get off to a rocky start, but their emails gradually become more personal. Lauren reveals she’s the eldest of six, while Elizabeth shares that her parents are divorced and her father left her and her mother to live in San Francisco. Over the summer, as their worlds shift rapidly with new boyfriends and goodbyes to old friends, they begin to realize they’ll need to rely on each other through this pivotal transition. 

Lauren and Elizabeth are extremely relatable protagonists, as Zarr captures the complexity of the emotions surrounding the end of high school and the first time leaving the nest. For example, Lauren is desperate for her own life after helping parent her five siblings, yet she’s afraid of change. She’s afraid to leave her family, and she’ll miss being part of their daily lives. Elizabeth is unhappy with her life because of the growing distance between her and her friends and boyfriend. Additionally, Elizabeth has a complicated relationship with her mother, who often behaves in an immature way. Lauren and Elizabeth are flawed characters who make plenty of mistakes and struggle to communicate. However, they remain endearing because the strife they endure is part of growing up, which readers will relate to.    

Much of the emotional conflict and fear about change that Lauren and Elizabeth experience stems from the new men in their lives, Keyon and Mark. When Lauren meets Keyon, she’s unsure whether to start a relationship. But Keyon is sweet and confident, and the two slowly fall in love. Mark enters Elizabeth’s life and becomes a steadying presence, though his and Elizabeth’s love seems too fast to be real. He also has a strained relationship with his father, which allows him to give Elizabeth an outside perspective on her parental issues. Zarr accurately captures the emotional turmoil of eighteen-year-olds navigating new experiences.   

Roomies is a fantastic story about growing pains from two different perspectives and environments. Lauren and Elizabeth experience first love at the same time their other friendships are drifting apart. They’re afraid to be vulnerable with each other, but soon learn they can lean on each other to get through the last summer before college. Lauren discovers she can spread her wings without fear of leaving her family behind, while Elizabeth learns to appreciate her mother. Zarr emphasizes the importance of understanding different cultures and views, as Lauren and Elizabeth initially misunderstand each other, but eventually expand their worldviews and find acceptance in one another. 

Zarr’s ending is one of hope and excitement for the roommates’ futures. Lauren and Elizabeth have issues throughout the book that escalate to Elizabeth requesting a roommate change. However, the two girls resolve their conflict and become honest about their feelings. This exchange solidifies their friendship and their desire to live together through the ups and downs of freshman year. They leave their families behind, knowing they will always be there to support them, freeing them both to live their own lives. Roomies explores the complexities of growing up, including making friends and leaving others behind. It teaches those transitioning to college that all their complicated feelings are normal and that the right “path” is to trust themselves and their decisions. 

Sexual Content  

• After seeing a red lipstick mark on a cup, Lauren’s dad jokes that the Garfield on his mug “has been violated.”  
• While hanging with her friends and their boyfriends, Elizabeth decides to “kiss [her boyfriend] right there on the beach.” 
• Lauren’s coworker, Keyon, stretches, and his shirt rises. Lauren tries not to “ogle his abs, regardless of their excellent condition.” 
• Elizabeth’s boyfriend jokes that she “doesn’t put out that easily.”  
• Elizabeth meets Mark at work, and she notices “the way his shorts hang a little bit too low on his hips.” Elizabeth also notices that Mark’s lip “sort of puckers when he talks and for sure when he kisses, too.” 
• At the party, Elizabeth’s friends only talk about sex. “Justine was thinking of doing it with Danny that night, and Morgan and Mitch, who’ve already done it, kept talking about how it wasn’t a big deal.” 
• Elizabeth calls her friend Justine a “lush who is hell-bent on losing her virginity.” 
• Lauren is at a party where she gets really close to Keyon, and they kiss. Lauren describes it as “lusty. . . sometimes you want to make out with someone, anyone.” 
• Elizabeth is worried about what Lauren will think because “I kissed a guy I barely know even though I already have a boyfriend.” 
• Lauren is responding to Elizabeth’s email about pressure to have sex and thinks, “I can keep taking care of my own needs the few times I have the interest and the privacy.” 
• Elizabeth and a boy she’s been dating, Alex, talk about their relationship, but Alex wants to give a “last-pitch plea for me to sleep with him to ‘deepen’ and ‘solidify’ our relationship,” which results in them breaking up. 
• Mark comes over to Elizabeth’s house after the breakup, and Elizabeth is wearing a “tank [that] is sort of loose and I’m not wearing a bra and he seems incapable of not noticing.” 
• While Mark is visiting, he and Elizabeth end up “kissing and our arms are entangled and we’re moving toward the wall.” They eventually stop so that Mark can run an errand for his mother, but he assures her they can meet up later. 
• Elizabeth is nervous about a swim park date with Mark because they have been “kissing a lot, but always with clothes on. Lifted and pushed aside some but still on.” 
• While driving and talking about the future of their relationship, Mark says he wants to “pull over and kiss some sense into [Elizabeth].” 
• After a successful dinner with Keyon’s parents, “he kisses [Lauren] like [she’s] never been kissed before.” 
• Elizabeth and Mark are about to have sex, but they are both nervous. “I ask, ‘Have you ever… before?’ ‘Once.’ He takes my hand. ‘For the wrong reasons. And it was pretty bad and I didn’t handle it all especially well so I decided to wait for the right reasons.’ ‘What if it’s bad again?’ I ask, looking at him. ‘Well, we’ll be bad together.’” They reassure each other of their feelings and walk into the motel together.  
• Elizabeth tells her friend Justine about giving her virginity to Mark and how she “did it again, too. The other night. Under the boardwalk!” 
• Mark comes over while Elizabeth is packing for college and “slides his arms around me and kisses me and kisses me.” They stop, and Mark helps her pack. 
• Elizabeth jokes that she might bring “birth control” to college.

Violence  

• None 

Drugs and Alcohol  

• Elizabeth goes to a party where “everyone but [her] got annoyingly drunk.” 
• Elizabeth ends up at the party alone, “holding a beer [she] wasn’t even drinking.” 
• Mark comes to visit Elizabeth and offers her a beer, which she wants to drink to “feel loose and free.”

Language  

• Profanity is used frequently. Profanity includes shit, fuck, hell, and bitch.

Supernatural  

• None 

Spiritual Content  

• Elizabeth believes in signs and thinks they could come from “fate, or the universe or God, if there is one.” 
• Elizabeth thinks that “someone, some power” must have seen that she needed help because “he (or she or it) takes it upon himself (or herself or itself)” to decide her roommate placement. 
• Elizabeth “hope[s] to God” that the kid she babysits didn’t pick her nose. 
• Lauren “thank[s] God” that her little sister is behaving because her other siblings are not. 
• The Ten Commandments are on Lauren’s mind after she learned from Elizabeth’s email that her mother is having an affair. 
• Lauren says that being “Catholic must be in [her] blood because [she] feel[s] sort of judge-y” about Elizabeth’s mother’s actions. 

by Annamaria Lund